Obituary to our Prof M Anandakrishnan

Read the eBook “Memorable Footprints of an educator” here and watch documentary video on his life history here.

The world has lost our beloved Prof M Anandakrishnan (திரு மு. ஆனந்தக் கிருஷ்ணன் ), Padma Shri awardee; heaven has gained one more blessed soul. I am speechless on hearing the news. Yet, I feel I must write these few lines for my own closure.

My interactions with “Prof” (as we affectionately called him) have not been deep, but every meeting with him has had a lasting impact on me. Each interaction was a lesson on life and work. I am unable to recall another personality in Tamil Nadu whose interests, talents, and contributions spanned so many domains, leaving an extraordinary mark on each. He was an educator par excellence, he had been a bureaucrat, an able administrator, an officer with the UN, a philanthropist, an institution(s) builder, a Tamil lover, a scientific advisor, a mentor for countless youngsters and many more. Even when he was 90 years old, he never had a dull moment and worked hard every day for the causes he was passionate about – I must admit, observing him work, I have always envied his alertness and energy levels; he was truly lucky to have them.

The first time I should have met him was on the sidelines of the Tamil.NET 99 conference in Chennai, when he was the scientific advisor to the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Dr Kalaignar. I was a 25-year-old youngster of no significance, yet he heard my opinions during the Tamil Font encoding standardisation discussions; remember, the committee was filled with stalwarts in the field. This is something that I noticed to be unique to Prof.  I am left wondering how he manages to hear the faintest voice, the whisper from the corner of the room – I find it hard to get over my prejudices when listening to others in a meeting.

He was instrumental in establishing INFITT (An International body for the promotion of Tamil-language computing) and served as its founding chairman around 1999. I had the honour of serving as the Chairman of the organisation in 2010, when, under Prof’s guidance, we conducted the Tamil Internet Conference 2010 in Coimbatore in partnership with the Government of Tamil Nadu. Accompanying him and participating in meetings with Ministers, IAS Officers, and International Dignitaries was a live professional conduct workshop for me. At the conference finale, I had the satisfaction of contributing my bit towards Tamil computing by getting the Government of Tamil Nadu to pass a government order recognizing Unicode to be the standard for Tamil encoding, which ended two decades of fighting amongst technologists, and smoothened the way for the usage of mobile by millions of Tamilians – the process of preparing this draft was a masterclass to me (and others involved) by Prof, on how to be diplomatic to a fault and not hurt the feelings and pride of all sides.

In all the volunteer groups I had served with him, he was always the first to take the fall and shield the others unconditionally; he was the last to get the bouquets and shifted the limelight to the rest of us.

If I had to name the top quality in life that I learned from him, it would be how to be purpose-driven, like in the famous Mahabharat story of Arjuna aiming at the bird’s eye, and not get distracted by the criticisms or praises.

Lastly, I cherish the moments of being in the committee that organised his 90th birthday celebrations in 2018 and released this book titled “Memorable Footprints of an Educator”. You can read the book online here and watch the recordings of the entire event here – Part 1 & Part 2 on YouTube. You will find much to learn from his journey, from humble beginnings in Vaniampadi (see the documentary) to the heights he reached through hard work and integrity.

May his soul attain moksha, Om Shanti!

References from my past posts:

1. Padma Shri recipient Prof M. Anandakrishnan (2009)
2. Tamil Internet Conference (2010)
3. Relevance of Unicode to e-Governance (2010)
4. Tamil Internet Conference (2013)
5. Felicitation to Prof.M.Anandakrishnan (2015) by Tamil Nadu Foundation, Inc
6. Prof M. Anandakrishnan’s 90th Birthday (2009)